Page 3 of A Taste For Trouble

“Well, I had to run out for a pie emergency,” replied Trevor. “Which reminds me…do you want a slice of pecan pie?”

I heard a yelp in the background before a very familiar voice said, “Unhand my pie, you thief!”

My stomach flipped over on itself at the sound of her voice, and I gripped the phone in my hand tighter.

“See me in my office when you’re done with lunch,” I said brusquely. “And no pie for you ever if you Travisoff doesn’t sign today.”

I hung up before Trevor could reply because I didn’t want the details of whatever shenanigans he and Rose were getting up to in the pie shop.

Rose Murphy… my mother’s god-daughter, Trevor’s BFF, and the bane of my life.

If ever a woman deserved to be called a manic pixie, it was her, with her long, wavy, strawberry blonde hair streaked with purple, a colour repeated on her glittery, cat eye glasses. She barely cleared five feet, but spread glitter and mayhem wherever she went. That feral little chaos gremlin was the opposite of everything I wanted in life. And yet, I seemed to spend most ofmylife trying to fixhers.

Rose was my mother’s dead best friend’s daughter. After her mother died when Rose was only fifteen, my Mom had taken her under her wings because she was the only remnant of the best thing that ever happened to her. Polly Murphy had come into our lives like a fairy godmother and dragged us out of the abyss of toxicity and depression that had seemed to be our fate until then.

It was only for her sake that I put up with the crazy that followed Rose and rushed to her rescue every time she needed rescuing. It had nothing to do with the fact that when I looked into her blue eyes, I sometimes forgot to breathe. Or that her nearness made my head spin. Or that her sweet scent drew me like a siren until all I wanted to do was wrap myself around her and never let go. No. That was just plain stupid.

Rose might look like a delicious strawberry shortcake, but she also came equipped with a sharp tongue that could slice a man to ribbons in seconds. As I had found out the hard way.

Trevor strolled into my office twenty minutes later, looking very disgruntled, and although I told myself it was none of my business, my wayward tongue got the better of me.

“You look like you’ve been in a fight to the death,” I commented. “Quincy run out of chocolate pie?”

“I’ve been trying to knock some sense into Rose,” he grumbled. “That girl has a death wish.”

I merely grunted in reply, determined not to be drawn into the latest edition of the lives and times of Rose Murphy.

I could feel Trevor sneaking a quick look at my face, and I made sure to keep my expression blank.

“Well, she’s soon going to be Joe Cheney’s problem, and isn’t that a good thing?” he said with a shrug.

Shut up, shut up, shut up! Stay out of it, Carlisle, I told myself sternly, but it was as if my tongue had a life of its own.

“What do you mean?” I asked, knowing I had just been played, but I was helpless to do anything about it.

“She’s making him her ‘marry-me’ lasagna tonight,” he said meaningfully, and I clenched my jaw in response. I knew that lasagna. I’d eaten that lasagna. Hell, I’d had to walk out of the room, so I didn’t get on my knees and beg Rose to make me that fucking lasagna every single day for the rest of my life.

I knew what it meant. She wanted Joe-fucking-Cheney to pop the question. Well, I wanted to pop the bastard’s head like a zit. And then lock her in the basement of her little cottage. How dare she make that lasagna for anyone but me?

“Do not throw that vintage Limoges paperweight, boss. It was a Christmas present from your mother,” shrieked Trevor like a terrified little girl.

I rolled my eyes at the drama queen. Honestly, I’d have been better off training a crow to be my assistant. The worst it could do was poop on my head if I pissed it off. Or plant crack cocaine on my desk when my grandmother dropped in for a surprise visit. As terrifying as that would be, it would still be way easier to handle than Trevor’s theatrics.

“I don’t even want to know what you’re talking about. Now, enough chitchat. Tell me what I need to know about Travisoff,” I said sternly.

“You were practically foaming at the mouth in anger at the thought of Rose marrying Joe. I didn’t want to explain to your mother that you destroyed her gift just because you flew into a rage,” he wheezed, as he pulled up a document on his laptop.

“I don’t care who she marries,” I replied shortly, and turned the conversation around to Roger Travisoff’s expectations from the deal I wanted to sign with him. Trevor emailed me the contract sent over by Travisoff’s legal team, and I spent the next few minutes working on amending the clauses that I didn’t think were to our benefit.

For the next few minutes, I edited and typed furiously until the document was practically unrecognisable.

Trevor peered over my shoulder and rubbed his chin as he stared at my work.

“Interesting. Is that High Elvish? Or an ancient version of Sanskrit that’s only known to three people on the planet? Because that doesn’t look like any contract I’ve ever come across,” he murmured, and I restrained the urge to throw my laptop at him.

“Why does she even want to marry that moron?” I demanded, finally, the words torn from my chest against my will.

“Maybe she loves him,” replied Trevor, with a casual shrug that I knew was totally fake.